


"Hollow"

by thestarkbitch



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: AU, Death, F/M, Family, Friendship, Gen, IF, Identity, Loss
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-23
Updated: 2013-10-15
Packaged: 2017-12-12 17:46:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/814265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestarkbitch/pseuds/thestarkbitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been five months since Davos shipped Gendry off to Braavos, but he is still having trouble forgetting the events at Dragonstone. He is haunted by the memory of his friend Arya Stark, who he presumes dead after the RW. </p>
<p>( So this is an "if" story. If Gendry assumes Edric's role to the full. If Davos chooses Braavos instead of Lys. It's my first fic, so I will appreciate feedback. There are some original characters.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own ASoIaF or the characters from those book.

Chapter 1:

"This is good work, boy."

It was late afternoon and the orange sunlight that bled in through the window made the blade glimmer as Lord Ollie inspected the dagger Gendry had forged. The dark haired boy nodded his thanks and shifted his weight uncomfortably, keeping his gaze set on the blade and never meeting the man's eyes. Lord Ollie was a stranger still, even after Gendry had lived with him for over four months. This whole place was strange, and Gendry strange in it.

Lord Ollie was a short, carefree man with a round belly and a thick, greying beard. He smiled too much, flashing his perfect set of teeth like a horse. Over all, he was a kind man. By far the kindest Gendry had served. _He wondered if Davos had anything to do with it_.

Gendry ran errands for the man, but aside from that, he was free to do pretty much anything he pleased. He chose to spend his time fixing up the the small, unused forge near Lord Ollie's dock though, instead of exploring the city, as Lord Ollie suggested he do many times.

"The forge is yours now, lad." the man had said when Gendry had asked if he could move a few things around. "You may do as you like with it."

Lord Ollie gave Gendry his space, and didn't ask him any questions. He had not even bothered to look over any of Gendry's work up until a few of days ago, when he decided to put his skills to the test by requesting he make a dagger for his nephew's 13th name day.

"Ever worked with Valyrian steel?" Lord Ollie slipped the dagger back inside it's scabbard and turned to Gendry.

"Tobho Mott was going to teach me, but then..."

Lord Ollie nodded, understanding, and patted Gendry's shoulder with a heavy palm. Gendry flinched. He still couldn't stand being touched. Even when it had been nearly half a year since the red priestess.

Davos was a quiet man, but he had explained the gravity of the situation quite thoroughly to Gendry as they hiked down the cliffs of Dragonstone and rowed out to sea during the hour of the wolf, where Gendry was plucked into a ship. That night was still a dark blur to him. Thinking back, his entire stay at that place was.

The pirate Salladhor, whose ship took Gendry from Westeros to Essos, told him a few stories about the Onion Knight, and Gendry quickly came to the conclusion that Davos was a man he could trust. A man of honor, even if he had met him in a dungeon. That however did not stop Gendry from being wary of his kindness. He should be used to it by now; not having control over his life. Every time he fell into a new situation though, he also fell into the most disgusting of emotions. Hope. He had hoped the Wall would offer a better home than Kingslanding had. Then he had hoped again when he'd met the Brotherhood. And when the red priestess bought him off the bastards, he had been stupid to hope, yet again. Her words had been promising. They had hypnotized him. He truly believed everything she claimed she saw in his eyes, and in his future. He just had no idea the cruel reality behind her prophecies.

He could feel his exterior hardening. The flame of hope still burned somewhere inside of him, thanks to Davos, but it burned low. Low and weak, and whatever came at him next, Gendry knew, would have the means to extiguish it forever.

He spent his days in Braavos waiting for it. As he walked the streets of the city, he glanced around at every one; around every corner, behind ever shuttered window, through the cracks of every ajar door he passed, just waiting for, well, not even Gendry knew what he was waiting for. But it was there. Large, and dark, and _waiting_ for _him_. Waiting for him to get too comfortable. For him to let his guard down. For his hope to gain strength. And so, Gendry kept his walls high, never letting anyone in, and he kept his hope at the brink of ceasing to exist.

"You need another name." Lord Ollie had said to him on his first morning in Braavos. "Any name. It shall be your new name from now, until you die. It will be the name you will give to anyone that ever asks."

Gendry knew that even a new name didn't protect him from _it_. Nothing could. It was not a name that Queen Cersei's Gold Cloaks were after on the Kingsroad, and it certainly wasn't a name that the Brotherhood sold to Melisandre.

It was the blood in his veins. The bastard blood of a King.

"Well, why don't you take this down to Tam." Lord Ollie placed the dagger in Gendry's hand, careful not to touch him. "He will love it."

Gendry nodded in obedience and turned for the door.

As he made his way down to the docks, where he would most likely find Tam, Gendry thought about what Lord Ollie had mentioned; about forging Valyrian steel. Perhaps Tam, or his uncle would know of someone who could teach Gendry how to work with it.

The boy was by the docks, just as Gendry had suspected. There was a shipment arriving, and Tam was standing aside amongst a small crowd that bobbed their heads curiously at the unloading ship.

Gendry's attention was elsewhere though, and the dagger, the ship and the young boy were forgotten. His eyes had caught glimpse of a skinny girl that was sitting by one of the canals.

Gendry licked his lips nervously as he took several involuntary steps towards her. Her back was to him, so he couldn't see her face, but he would recognize that back anywhere, even with no hair.

"Edric!" he heard Tam calling behind him, but he ignored the boy and crossed the rest of the way to the girl. He inhaled deeply, reaching a hand towards her shoulder.

"Don't touch me." she spoke before he could touch her. She spoke braavosi, but her accent was westerosi, and for a second Gendry's heart jumped with hope. But then the girl turned and Gendry had to blink several times to shake away the overwhelming feelings that threatened to cause his knees to give. _This is not Arya._

How could he have been so stupid to think _she_ would be _here_.

"I could hear you walking." the blindfolded girl explained, as if she assumed he was wondering how she knew he was there.

Gendry could feel wetness in the corners of his eyes. He was glad the girl couldn't see him. He must look absolutely idiotic.

He opened his mouth, about to apologize for disturbing her, when Tam came besides him, catching his breath and grabbing at his sides. "Edric!" he gasped out excitedly.

"This is yours." Gendry pushed the dagger into his hands, "Happy name day, from your uncle." He bowed his head, hoping the boy would run off to show his friends or something and leave him alone. But the boy minded his gift for a few seconds before he turned to the girl sitting by the canal. "Why are you talking to _her_?"

Gendry gritted his teeth. "You should go thank your uncle, boy." he shoved the boy gently by the shoulder, and thankfully, the boy obeyed.

"Edric." the girl pulled her legs over the edge, and clumsily rose off the ground with the help of her walking stick. Gendry caught her arm to steady her, but she snatched it away from him. He took a step back, regarding her features carefully. The cloth that was binded around her head to cover her eyes hid most of her face, but what little skin could be seen, was covered in gruesome pox scars. The scars ran along her neck and arms as well. She had a mole, her head was shaved, and she looked unhealthily skinny, and very dirty.

"Yes." he said carefully. "That is my name."

The girl's head tilted to one side. "I'm Beth." she told him. "Blind Beth."

 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Arya made it back to the House of Black and White just as the light afternoon rain picked up vehemently.

The waif helped her strip out of the wet disguise as she told the kindly man the three things she'd learned, keeping to herself the story of the lying boy she had met.

She was becoming a better liar. The waif had told her so. But she still could not lie to the kindly man. She could keep things from him though, if she was fast enough about it. Keeping things to yourself and lying was not the same thing. She had learned to tell those apart too, as well as when someone stretched the truth or exaggerated. Her sight was gone from her, but her other senses were alive, and lapped at the atmosphere for details. She could tell people apart by their scent, and the sound of their footsteps, and she could tell apart lies from truths. The boy she met was a liar.

It was not that he was the first liar she had met that struck her interest. Everyone lied. Some people more than others. Some, the same lie over and over again. Every day she would walk down the streets and beg for money and she heard lies spoken all around her, down every street, and in both local and foreign tongues. Lies were the thread the held the tapetry together. 

What had intrigued Arya so much about  _this_  boy in particular, was that he told the same lie Arya had spent so long telling herself. The same lie the kindly man would not have of her when she first arrived to the House of Black and White. His lie was his name.

 _"No."_  She recalled the kindly man's reply to her lie those many nights ago. _"Tell me your name."_

The same words almost escaped her mouth when the boy first told her his name was Edric. But she bit her tongue and kept her words to herself.

He was very quiet and reserved. Careful and distrusting and he was only talking to her because it had been  _him_ who had approached  _her_  in the first place, and he did not know how to walk away politely. Arya could tell all of that from his voice.

Another thing his voice told her, was that he was from Westeros. His accent was just as bad as hers had been when she'd first learned the Braavos tongue. Possibly worse. He had not been here long.

He had finally pressed a copper on her open palm and walked away.

It was nine days before she came across him again. It amazed Arya that his footsteps stood out among all the other ones in the busy street, and that she had been right to assume they were his. He whispered something briefly, but Arya was too far away to hear it, or to hear the short reply from the woman he was speaking to.

Arya turned and walked up the stone street, in the direction the boy had come from, for a few steps before she found a wall she could sit against to wait. What ever business brought him here didn't take him long and he was out on the streets before long. Arya sunk to the floor, her had extended out as people walked by.

He could miss her. The street was too crowded, and she was but a small figure against a wall, and he walked awfully fast.

But then she felt the coin drop into her palm as his spiced scent rushed by her.

"Edric?" she called out.

His stride came to a stop. "How did you know?" he asked curtly. Behind the wariness in his voice was genuine curiosity.

Arya pressed her hand against the stone wall to help herself to her feet. "The way you walk." she crossed to him.  _And your scent._

_He smells like fir needles and incense._

"Everybody walks the same." he snapped.

"No. No one does. You have very heavy footsteps."

"I'm not fat, if that's what you're implying."

Arya shook her head. "Your footfall is heavy." she explained. "Heavy and haste."

"Perhaps because I have somewhere to be." she heard his feet whirl over the ground as he began to leave.

"...as if you're weighed down . . . by something." she finished her sentence awkwardly and stopped herself from biting her lip.

He steps came to a stop once again, but she did not hear him turn to face her. "Well that's strange."

"Why?"

"I don't know. It just is. It's strange to have heavy footsteps, when you feel empty inside."

He began to leave again, and this time Arya did not try to stop him with any more conversation.

That night, when she told the kindly man the three new things she had learned, she began to tell him about Edric.

"I met a boy today who said he felt empty inside," she began, but the kindly man interrupted her.

"That is a lie."

"It is not." Arya was angry, but the kindly man insisted.

Later, as she made her way down to the vaults, she chewed on her lip to consider what about her story was a lie. That was when she felt the slap across her face, and remembered the waif's words,  _"It is Arya of House Stark who chews on her lip whenever she is thinking."_

"I am no one." Arya spoke out into the echoing walls, rubbing at her burning cheek.

She could not find sleep that night trying to find the untruth in her unfinished story, and she could not get the boy's words out of her head.

There were many men and women Arya had come across who had sounded as sad as that boy sounded. Rage, revenge, anger, bitterness, and many other emotions had consumed them. None of them were empty.

_Not like Edric._

She tried to picture his face. Tried to imagine what empty eyes looked like. His possible features warped in her head. He could have yellow hair, like the Lannisters. Or dark hair, like her and her father, or even darker, like her brother Jon. It could be red, like the hair of her mother and the rest of her siblings.

He could be tall. He could be short. He could have freckles, and a hooked nose. He could be disfigured, or very handsome.

Arya yawned. Trying to give Edric a face was finally giving weight to her eye lids.

She settled for red hair, but when she tried to give his eyes a color, she found that all she could picture, was hollow irises.

_Hollow like him._

She yawned again and turned on her side. " _Ser Gregor_." her lips mouthed silently. " _Dunsen. Raff the Sweetling. Ser Ilyn. Ser Meryn. Queen Cersei_. Valar morghulis."

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"What do you see?"

Gendry was tempted to say 'nothing', but he thought twice on it.  _I might offend her,_ he thought, so he didn't say anything at all.

"Don't say  _nothing_." Beth cried out besides him. Gendry licked his smiling lips and coughed back a chuckle.

 _My first smile since the incident at Dragonstone_. The realization made him uncomfortable and the smile faded instantly. He shouldn't let himself feel anything. Even temporary emotions were dangerous. He should have learned his lesson by now.

Upon seeing the blind girl for the very first time, he had actually allowed himself to hope, for a moment, that it would be his friend, Arya Stark. For a brief second, that girl had looked just like Arya from behind, and the hope he had worked so hard on keeping at bay deep inside of him had nearly consumed him at that moment. But this was not Arya Stark.

_Arya Stark is probably dead somewhere back in Westeros._

The memory of his old friend stirred more feelings in him than he liked, so he pushed the thoughts of her aside, and focused on the task the blind girl had assigned him. To close his eyes and see with his ears. With his nose. With his skin. With his tongue.

The air smelled and tasted the same as it always did though, and he could hear too much, and nothing that " _painted pictures in his mind's eye_  " like the girl had said it should. He tried to focus on just one sound alone. He could hear Beth smacking her lips as she finished the last of the meat on the pit of the plum he'd bought her.

He left Lord Ollie's in a hurry that morning, having woken up in no mood to tolerate the man's bright spirit for too long. He arrived at the docks just in time to see a ship bearing the Pentos colors make port. It was carrying crates full of plums. He caught of glimpse of Beth sitting on the pier, her bare feet dangling towards the water. When Gendry asked what she was doing there, she answered, "hoping something accidentally falls out of one of the crates."

So Gendry walked to a man with a dyed beard and bought two plums off him. When Beth ravenously devoured the one he place in her hand, he decided to give her  _his_  too.

"I can hear  _you._ You enjoying the fruit." he told her. He heard the tiny _ploop_  as she dropped the pit of the plum into the water.

"That's a start." he heard the  _clank_  of wood against wood as she lifted her walking stick from behind them. Then the repeated splashes as she began to smack the surface of the water with the stick. "What else?"

"I'm tired of this." Gendry opened his eyes, blinking against the ray of sunlight that bled through a crack on a dark cloud in the sky. It was heavy with water.

"Because you're terrible at it?" Beth asked.

"Maybe."

They sat in silence after that. Gendry had always enjoyed watching the ships come and go in Kings Landing as a child. He remembered wondering many times , what was beyond the stretch of water.  _Now I know_. He wondered which part of Westeros Beth was from. The few times he'd spent with her walking by the canals, or by the taverns and inns where she did most of her begging, had been spent mostly like this; in a comfortable silence. He didn't know much about her, and she hadn't asked anything about him. Gendry liked that about her. It still made him very uneasy when people asked him too many questions. The fact that he had a thick Westeros accent and that Lord Ollie, a respected nut merchant, had taken in a foreign ward, had arisen questions on more than one occasion during some of Gendry's errand runs.

He glanced over to Beth.

He still didn't trust her. Even when she didn't ask him a million question like Tam did. Not that she needed to, either. Her blindness was a misfortune, but it sharpened her other senses, and he didn't doubt that she had already figured out more things about him than he liked.

"Have you been blind all your life?" he turned away and waited for her answer.

"I was born blind." she told him.

Gendry turned to her and found himself feeling oddly tempted to peep under the dirty blindfold, just to see what her eyes looked like, so he turned away quickly and watched as the sun hid behind the fat, dark cloud.

"Would you like me to describe something for you?" he offered.

She shook her head. "I like the pictures I paint in my mind better." she told him. "But thank you."

Gendry shifted his weight awkwardly, feeling stupid for asking. She must have sensed it, because she turned to him with what looked like a smile.

"You could describe yourself, if you like. What do you look like?"

Gendry's gaze fell.

He though about it. Really though about. He could tell her the truth. But the truth was painful. Ever since the red priestess revealed he was the bastard son of King Robert that was who Gendry saw reflected every time he looked into a mirror. He'd only seen the drunk king a few times from afar, but he'd seen enough to know that it was  _him_  he resembled and not his dead mother.

Perhaps he could be someone else; look like someone else, just this once. Just for one person. He could be Edric, and  _not_ Gendry, bastard son of Robert Baratheon. Edric could look like anyone he wanted; be anyone he wanted. Just this once.

_Just for Beth._

"Just. Tall." he sighed. "Just very tall."

"And not fat."

There was that smile again, creeping in the corners of his lips. "Yes. Very tall, and not fat."

He saw her hand reaching up to his face before he realized what she was doing. And even though she said, "may I feel your face?", he still couldn't help the startled flinch of his entire body, which in turn startled her. She tried to jerk back, but something stopped her. That's when he noticed he was gripping her wrist to keep her hand from touching him.

He released her quickly, "I'm sorry." he muttered out. "I don't like being touched."

She nodded in understanding and thankfully, she didn't seem offended or shaken up.

Suddenly, Gendry felt too exposed sitting on the pier for anyone to see. He had to get away from here.

"It's getting late." he stood, eyeing their surrounding warily. "I should leave."

He stormed off the pier before she could say anything in reply, and hurried back to Lord Ollie's home. He would skip smithing today. For some reasons his mood had been dampened.

That night, he dreamed of fire. Fire and Melisandre.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

The trees blended into a vast, dark blur all around her as she sped around them with raw freedom. She was led by her nose and followed by her grey cousins.  
  
Down a slope they ran in unison, the bright moon above them lighting their way. _They were not too far now_. She could smell the group of men by the river. She could hear their hearts beating, counting down the seconds they had left to live.  
  
Water splashed as they cut through a small stream. _They are just over that hill_.  
  
Her legs found a new sudden strength and speed and she flew off the hill top.

Teeth sunk into a tender neck, the taste of blood as sweet as summer air, shocking her into ecstasy. Her nostrils flared.  
  
She tore off flesh from bone and relished in the wet, choking sounds that the man managed before the life left him.  
  
There were agonized screams all around as her pack tore the men to pieces. It was music to her ears.  
  
  
Arya cracked her eyes open a fraction and saw nothing. She shut them quickly, trying to grasp the lingering visuals from her dream. The silver forest, reflecting the moon light off every possible surface. The dark crimson blood, pooling out of her victims... all those vibrant images were fading from her mind's eye. She frowned against the mattress. There was a knot on the small of her back, so she turned on her side with a wince. Her mouth tasted sour and any trace of the taste of blood had left with her dream. It made her feel heavy with sadness.  
  
Once she had dressed, her nose led her to the kitchen in the same way it had led her to her prey in her dreams.  
  
"And who are you this morning?" the kindly man was already sitting in the table, eating his eggs.  
  
"Beth. Blind Beth."  
  
"Would you like to see again, Blind Beth?"  
  
 _Yes._ "Not today." she sat at the end of the table. "Ask me again, come morrow."  
  
She didn't need eyes to know the kindly man simply nodded at her.  
  
"What three new things have you to tell us that you did not know before we last spoke?"  
  
Arya blinked, a habit she had formed after trying to hold back from biting her lip. "The boy I mentioned the other day. I found out he is tall."  
  
The kindly man swallowed his food. "Does he have a name?"  
  
"Doesn't everyone?" Arya heard him exhale sharply in annoyance. "He gave me his name, but it was a lie. So I just think of him as Hollow, since that is all I picture in my head when I speak to him. A hollow person."  
  
"A _tall,_ hollow person." the kindly man's voice was almost mocking. Arya nodded. Umma placed a plate of warm food in front of her. Arya's mouth watered as the pungent smell of cooked peppers reached her nose. "Do you speak to him often? This _friend_ of yours?"  
  
 _He is not my friend._ "Beth has no friends." she stabbed her fork into a slice of pepper and pushed it in her mouth. It was slick with oil. _Yellow peppers_. Her favourite.  
  
"What about Cat of the Canals? Does she have friends? And Arya of House Stark. Did she leave any friends behind in Westeros?”  
  
Arya swallowed the food in her mouth, licking at the oil in her lips. _I had friends_. She thought bitterly. _A pack._ Two boys she had picked up along the way when the gods had split apart her first pack, her family. In a way those boys had become her family. But then... then they left her.  
  
"No. Arya has no friends back in Westeros."  
  
For a long moment, there was no answer. Arya thought the man had left the room. He had a habit of sneaking in and out of rooms unnoticed. It made her toes curl with irritation.  
  
Finally, after a long silence, he asked, "What else did you learn?" making his presence known.  
  
After breakfast she went to find the dead bodies in the temple. It had been a busy night. She found five corpses. The serving men carried them down to the vaults where she stripped them of their clothes and possessions. She thought of nothing in these moments. She only worked, trying to visualize what was before her. Her fingers were her eyes in the nothingness and with them she could see the corpses, their faces, their simple or intricate outfits. The last expression on their faces when they had exhaled their last breath. Some died smiling. Others still had sticky faces from the tears they'd shed.  
   
  
While unlacing the jerkin on one of the men, she found a small folded piece of paper stitched on the inside of the softened leather; near his heart. Arya blinked in the darkness and began picking at the stitches with her nails. It was a tedious task. The stitches were thick and tightly woven, but after long, they finally gave and she pulled at them until the paper came loose. She unfolded it and let her fingers graze over its surface. All she could feel were the creases in the paper and the small holes that dotted along them from the stitches.  
  
Arya did not know what drove her to do it, but when she folded the paper she didn't place it down with the rest of the belongings. She slipped her hand under her robe and tucked it into her small clothes.  
  
She resumed her duty, feeling the corners of the folded paper poking at the soft skin of her hip as she moved over the corpses.  
  
That evening, when she went out to beg by the canals near the Green Eel, she came close to discarding the thing twice. It rested noticeably against her hip and distracted her from listening to her surroundings. It even distracted her when walking. A bump on the bridge caught her foot and her walking stick snapped in two with a strained crack when she tried to stop her fall with it.  
  
"You have one skinned elbow and a fractured wrist." the waif finished wrapping her wrist up that night and pushed the cup of milk under Arya's nose. "Drink." she commanded, and Arya gulped it down quickly, holding back a gag.  
  
There was no safe place to hide the paper. Arya thought about sneaking out of the temple when the city slept to hide it with Needle, but as she stretched on her back and felt the bulky lumps of cloth under her, she decided she would roll it up as tightly as she could, and push it through a small tear on the side of her mattress. She padded it out so that it could get lost amongst the rags and laid on her side, closing her tired eyelids. She would be in the forest soon. The winter breeze in her fur. The starry night above her.

  
" _Cersei._ " her lips moved to form the name.  
  
 " _Ser Gregor_."


	5. Chapter 5

**AN:**

 

**First off. Thanks to all the reviewers and readers. Thanks to Jackie for suggesting I publish this story on AO3, and to John for making time to look over it.**

 

**As always leave me a review. If you are a writer, then you should know how much they mean, and they don't take long. Enjoy.**

 

Chapter 5

 

A single flame danced lazily at the end of the dark room, lulling Gendry into sleep. His lids grew heavy. He blinked once. Twice. The flame split; two halos of light in the otherwise dark room. Life sparked on the wick of a sister candle, and the dim light betrayed the shape a cloaked form lighting a third candle. One by one, the cloaked person lit candles all around the room. Gendry's eyes followed warily. When they finally turned, Gendry saw it was the red priestess, Melisandre, smiling at him from under the heavy red hood of her cloak. Gendry tried to jerk off the bed, but his hands and feet were tied to the posts. He tugged at his binds. The red priestess took a step towards him and pulled back her hood.  
  
"No!" Gendry pleaded.   
  
And then he woke up.   
  
Seven nights. Seven nights in a row he had dreamt of the red priestess. Each dream was different. Sometimes there was fire. Sometimes there were leeches. Sometimes she was naked, standing still as stone, staring at him as he drowned in a pool of his own blood. The only thing that never changed about his dreams was that she was smiling.  
  
Gendry felt his stomach lurch and he turned on his side and pulled himself to the edge the bed in time to vomit on the floor. When he had nothing left in his stomach to spew out, he crawled out from under the covers and began cleaning up the mess. It was still dark out, but he didn't want to go back to sleep, so he pulled on some breeches and a light weight tunic from a pile of clothes that was resting on a chest and quietly made his way down the stairs, through the kitchen and out the back door. He considered going down to the forge to beat away at his demons with a hammer and anvil, but that had not worked out so well last time. Ever since the witch came to him in his dreams, he hadn't been able to concentrate on doing any smith work.  
  
He climbed the ladder on the side of the stone house and carefully positioned himself over the cold tiles of the roof to wait for morning. He let his eyelids fall close and used his other senses to see. _Like Beth._  
  
Earlier that week he had seen the blind girl sitting by the Long Canal with her begging bowl sat besides her. Gendry had rolled his eyes and crossed one of the narrow bridges to the other side of the street to avoid being heard or sensed by her. He had been in no mood to talk to her.  
  
Even with leagues of sea between them, the red priestess was sucking what little life he had left out of him. She was a leech. Gendry did not know how much more of the dreams he could take. Broken things fall apart, and he was a touch away from shattering.  
  
Lord Ollie had noticed it too. The man had gone as far as relieving Gendry of his messenger duty. "I need something to do." Gendry had protested. "I grow exhausted of doing so little as it is."  
  
"You are a guest in my home. Not a servant. I had a messenger boy before you came. I only allowed you to take his place because your spirits were so low with you cooped up in here. But I have hired Liev again. There's a lot of Braavos you have not explored. Why don't you go out for a walk? Or why not go down to the forge?"   
  
Gendry had not wished to reveal to the man that the sight of the forge upset him now and that he didn't want to be anywhere near fire.  
  
Thankfully, Lord Ollie still encouraged his lessons with Tam. The boy was an irritating, chipper soul, and Gendry wasn't particularly fond of leaning to write and speak Braavosi. When Lord Ollie first suggested he take up lessons, the man had cleverly made it appear as if Gendry was doing Tam a favour.  
  
"The boy needs a partner to study with. He hasn't many friends. Perhaps you can help him." Lord Ollie had mentioned over dinner one evening about a month after Gendry had been shipped there.  
  
"I never learned to read or write. I know a few numbers. But that is all. I can't help him."  
  
Gendry had not been polite about his tone when answering the man, but Lord Ollie barely seemed to notice.  
  
"That's quite alright, my boy. Tam can teach you. It will do him good to teach someone what he is learning."  
  
Gendry hated it. He always had a headache after his lessons, but Lord Ollie encouraged them, "for Tam," he would say, but Gendry knew it was really for him.  
  
Now that he had been relieved of his messenger duties however, and with a head stuffed with too many thoughts, he welcomed the lessons, and the time with Tam.  
  
  
The grey city was growing smaller with every day that passed, and the endless sea that curled around it had become a cage.   
  
If this was what being a highborn was like, then he thanked the gods he was a lowborn. Idleness did not sit well with him.  
  
His thoughts found Arya. It had been very hard to picture her in a dress when he'd first learned she was a highborn. But then he'd seen her wearing the green acorn dress, and-  
  
His eyes flew open. The memory of her stung, so he tried to stay away from it, even when, looking back, she was the only thing he missed. Not King's Landing, or Tobho Mott, or the brief flicker of happiness he'd felt when he thought he was actually part of the Brotherhood. Gendry missed none of those things. He only missed Arya. Sometimes Hot Pie too, but mostly just Arya. Even when his time with them had been spent running and trying to stay alive, they were the best memories he had. Because they included people that had cared for him. _Truly_ cared for him. _"I can be your family."_    
  
His face twisted with grief and he sniffed, wiping at the wetness seeping out of his eyes.   
  
What a fucking fool he had been. _Maybe if I'd gone with her. Maybe if I'd been there when-  
  
_ He exhaled a pained sigh.  
  
The knowledge that the leeches with _his_ blood had sent King Robb, his mother, banner men, and possibly Arya to an early grave was a twisting knife in his gut. An ache he had to live with.  
  
The sun was beginning to lighten the sky and he could hear a few cocks crowing in the distance. He sat on the roof a little longer until a slice of sun peeked over a distant mountain, glowing as bright as hot metal waiting to be shaped by his hammer.  
  
When he snuck back into the house, the smell of the incense Lord Ollie was so fond of burning filled the house and seared Gendry’s nose. One of the kitchen wenches was already awake; pulling out ingredients from chests and cupboards. Gendry pumped some water for breakfast and climbed up stairs to wash and change. Later that day he met with Tam. After his lessons, he decided to go and give the forge a try. _I can't stay away from fire forever._  
  
The small, stone room by the docks smelled as damp as it had the first time he'd opened the thick yellow doors. He got a fire started, but after that his mind became a void. He began to panic and none of the tools felt balanced in his hands. _What am I supposed to do next?_  
  
He picked up a hammer and grazed a hand over the smooth surface of the anvil, waiting for inspiration.  
  
When none came, he swirled and threw the hammer against the wall. He picked up another, larger hammer. That one flew right through the heavy doors. A pair of tongs followed; then another.  
  
When it was over the forge was beyond repair. Gendry ripped the apron off, slipped into his blue embroidered jerkin and stormed out of the forge. He knew exactly where he wanted to go.  
  
The waterfront was lively this time of day, and Moroggo's tavern was crowded and loud enough that he would not be noticed. He downed his first three tankards of ale vigorously. When the woman set down the fourth before him with a heavy _plop,_ Gendry stared as the foamy surface swayed, spilling over the rim. His belly was full and his body was buzzing. He knew he'd had enough, but he still picked up the mug, cradled it in his hands and sipped softly at the froth.  
  
"I hear her army is well taken care of. She beds them all, they say." someone nearby whispered in the common tongue of Westeros. Gendry's hearing sharpened.  
  
"Tales. All of them." a second voice whispered back.  
  
"I'm not interested." a third, much huskier voice snapped. "Let Westeros rip itself apart, that's nothing to me. I'll not fight for her any more than I fought for any other man who claimed themselves King.  She was squirted out of a Targaryen prick and into a Targaryen cunt. What of it? In my book that does not make her any more suitable to rule than any of the traitor's wolf pups, or the brothers or bastards of that Baratheon sot, or even the yellow haired Lannisters. The Iron Throne should be fought for, not begged for."  
  
"And that is exactly what she is trying to do. She is not begging for her rightful place. She will fight for it, with fire and with armies." It was the first voice again.  
  
"Not with my sons." the husky voice replied curtly. "Not with any of my men. I've made a life here now. I have my family to think of. That is all that matters to me now.” 

 

“Westeros belongs to the crows, and I don’t mean the mangy Night’s Watch; freezing their cocks off at the Wall. I mean the crows that will pick the flesh off the dead once this war is over.”  
  
Gendry jumped off his chair abruptly, knocking it to the floor. The room spun. The music distorted in the background, and all the faces around began to close in on him. 

  
He spun clumsily towards the door and his hand smacked against something. Over the loud music, the laughter and conversation, he was still able to hear the ring of coins as they rained down on the floor, spinning between people's feet before falling flatly on their side. Gendry dropped to his knees and began plucking them off the floor, muttering to himself incoherently.  
  
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" it was Moroggo, lifting him off the ground by his collar. In the blur of the room and the thickness of the air, he saw Beth, rising from the floor; her bowl of spilled coins cradled in her hands.  
  
"I'm sorry." Gendry told her, and opened his damp palm to drop the coins into her bowl. A few stuck to his skin, but he picked at them until they fell. He was halfway to the door before he could see if they had dropped into the bowl or not.  
  
It was already dark out. The mist was moving thickly across the streets and over the canals like an eerie animal, devouring all. Gendry took in several breaths and felt himself relax a bit.  
  
  
  
Soft footsteps patted his way until Beth came into view.  
  
"I'm sorry." Gendry told her. "I'm a mess."  
  
"Yes." was all she said.  
  
He turned to her, about to smile, when he noticed something different about her. "Where's your walking stick?"  
  
"It broke, some days ago.” she shrugged. “I don't need it anymore, though."  
  
"Your bandaged wrist suggests you do."  
  
Beth chewed on her lip. _Like Arya._ In this light, she _could_ be Arya. Gendry closed his burning eyes and shook his head. He was too drunk. His eyes were playing tricks on him.  
  
"I must be going." he told her without sparing her a last look. He took two steps into the street before he turned to one side and emptied his stomach into a cluster of bushes that rimmed the edge of Moroggo’s boardwalk.  
  
He wiped one sleeve over his lips, grimacing at the sour taste in his throat.  
  
"I'll walk you home." Beth offered behind him. "The fog is rising."  
  
Gendry was about to object, but one look at their surroundings and he nodded. He remembered she couldn't see him, so he voiced his thanks.  
  
They were silent most of the walk, something Gendry was used to with Beth. She stumbled once by the one of the canals, and stubbed her boot going up a snake of stone steps, not far from Lord Ollie's street. Gendry stopped himself from steadying her, recalling their first meeting and how she seemed as uncomfortable with physical contact as he was.  
  
"We need to get you a new walking stick." he could taste the salty mist in his mouth as he spoke.  
  
"No." she said. "I don't need it."  
  
She was proud. Proud and stubborn.  
  
 _Like Arya._  
  
Gendry clenched and unclenched his teeth, trying to will himself to shut off that voice inside his head, to shut off Arya from his thoughts.  
  
When Gendry woke the next morning, his head was throbbing, his mouth was dry and tasted bitter. He remembered Beth at the tavern and Beth in the fog walking him home, but that was all. He did not remember walking into the large house or stripping naked and crawling into bed, and he did not remember if Melisandre had been in his dreams.  
  
 _Good._  
  
Gendry skipped breakfast, but Lord Ollie fixed him up a concoction for his head.  
  
As he sipped at the thick drink, he remembered with odd clarity that Beth needed a walking stick. The girl might be too proud to admit it, but he noticed, despite his drunken state, that more than once she nearly tripped. Gendry had never done wood work, but he didn't think there was much trick to it. He finished the drink and made his way down to the ruined forge.  
  
He was going to make Beth a new walking stick. 

 

**Note: don't forget to review :)**


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: First off (something i should have done since chapter 1) I don't owe any of the ASOIAF characters or the story.**

 

**This chapter was longer, but I split it in two, and I'm debating on whether giving you a Gendry chapter next, or continuing with the rest of this one in chapter 7.**

 

**As always, thanks to all my readers and reviewers, and thank you John, for looking over this and encouraging me.**

 

**This chapter will flow a lot better if you re-read "The Blind Girl" and "The Ugly Little Girl" from A Dance with Dragons because this chapter is parallel to those two and what happens to Arya in them, with the slight exception of Edric/Gendry. So I highly recommend, if you have the books, re-read the chapters.**

 

**Enjoy!**

 

 

Chapter 6

 

"Remember to use your senses. You have five." the waif placed a walking stick in Arya's hand. 

 

"I have four." Arya said, testing out the weight of the stick with her left hand. It was longer and had slightly larger girth than her first. 

 

"Would you like your eyes back? Just ask and they shall be returned to you." 

 

 _And you will turn me out._ "No." Arya told her. She would _earn_ her eyes back. 

 

The kindly man also asked her the same question while he ate his eggs later in the kitchen. "I may want them on the morrow. Not today." 

 

She always refused the offer. They knew it was a lie. They knew she desperately wanted her eyes; and she _did._ But the want to stay in the House of Black and White and become faceless was stronger. _Have them ask me_ that _every morning_ , she thought as she tore a piece of bread off the loaf and pushed it in her mouth. _Ask me if I want to stay here. I will always answer truthfully to that_. "Yes." her answer would be. Always "yes." 

 

She told the kindly man the three new things she had learned and then set off to find the bodies in the temple. There were two. A young, handsome man with thick curls framing his dead face, and an old woman who had met death with a smile. Not one dead body was ever the same to another. They were all so different to her, even in the blankness. Different smells, sizes, clothes, possessions, expressions. Everyone had a different texture to their skin, a different life, and a different reason to seek death.

 

Arya remembered every body she had stripped with surprising detail. Perhaps it wasn't too surprising, since most of her time was spent among the dead now. She missed Cat of the Canals. Cat had been her favourite identity to take. Cat walked the streets of Braavos, pushing Brusco's carts and making friends. But Arya had killed her the night she killed the Night's Watch deserter. _No, not Arya_ , she thought. _You are no one, stupid girl. You have no one because you are no one._

 

"Arya Stark enjoyed needlework."

 

It was after supper, and the waif was working on a poison. Arya was sitting beside her, wrinkling her nose at the strong smell that steamed off a pot. The waif stilled her hands in thought, and long moments passed in silence before she finally said, "That is a lie."

 

"It's the truth." Arya corrected.

 

"That is also a lie."

 

"Is it?"

 

More silence. "Yes." the waif finally answered.

 

Arya smiled. "Your turn."

 

"This poison here is so strong, it turns the mouth to ash in 15 seconds." 

 

Arya bit the inside of the cheek that was not facing the waif. She could almost picture the smile on the girl’'s small face as she waited for her to answer wrong. Over the months they'd spent playing this game, both Arya and the waif had found new ways to play with the truth; to bend it and stretch it. To choose words carefully in order to hide their lies better. It was necessary. Over the months, they had both learned each other's tells. 

 

"Truth."

 

'It's a lie. This poison can turn the mouth to ash in 10 seconds."

 

Arya clenched her jaw. "What is it for?"

 

"It's your turn." 

 

For a long, drawn out moment, Arya thought of what to say next. Perhaps she could accuse the waif of attacking her down in the vaults earlier, while she undressed the dead. But that had been a man, not a childlike woman and she knew the waif’s scent now, and her footstep. It had not been the waif. "Beth should go out now, and beg."

 

The bark stool creaked as the waif stepped down. "Let's get you ready then." she told Arya.

 

It was a good night for Blind Beth. She decided to do her begging at Pynto's tavern. The smelly man gave her some watered down wine, some cheese and half an eel pie. He told her a few tales until the tavern grew crowded, and then it was the cat that had jumped on her lap that kept her company. Arya scratched behind its ear, enjoying the vibrations of its steady purring against her palm as she saw her surroundings. It was the cat's eyes, and not hers she was seeing though, but it was the only time she could see. Through cats, and through her wolf dreams. 

 

The cat followed her home that night, and the next morning, while she spoke with the kindly man, it was hiding in the rafters of the kitchen and the bling girl could see all. 

 

Arya uttered out to the kindly man two things she learned. When he asked for a third, she told him she knew it was he who had been hitting her, and moved to knocking the long stick he was holding out of his hand with her own. He demanded she reveal how she knew this. 

 

"I gave you three." Arya retorted. " I don't need to give you four."

 

That evening, the waif handed her her cup of milk, and Arya gulped it down in three quick sips. The cup fell from her hands immediately after. Her tongue was on fire. The wine she drank after only made it spread. Finally the waif handed her bread, which finally quenched the flames. 

 

When Arya sleepily cracked her heavy eyelids open the following morning, she saw a single flame in the darkness, blurred by sleep. She rubbed a knuckle to her eye and sprung into a sitting position, fully awake now. The flame was indeed there, dancing shyly on its wick. Arya bit her lip and inhaled a shuddery breath in awed reverence. The flame was breathtakingly beautiful. She bolted out of bed with joy and patted her way to the candle. Her eyes took in its orange glow; her skin felt it's soft, whispery heat. With her nose she could smell its faint scent and her ears could hear its nearly silent hiss. 

 

Arya's senses were alive. _All_ of them!

 

 

"The letter!" 

 

Arya crossed to the mattress and found the hole with her fingers. She pushed one in and felt her way around, but after several fruitless attempts found nothing. She pulled at the fabric, hearing it tear until the hole was big enough to fit her hand in. It took her a while, but she finally found the curled letter amongst the rags.

 

She sprinted to the candle. Outside one of the folds, " _his last letter_." was written in small writing. Arya unfolded the paper and rubbed at the curling edges, squinting at the messy curving letters in the light of the candle.

 

_My son, by the time this letter reaches you I will be dead. I can feel life leaving me with every breath i take. There is not much time left for me. Not enough to write all the things I want to. So I will tell you the two that matter most. The first is, I lied. You never were a disappointment. I am proud of the man you have become. Truly, I am. I am sorry I ever led you to think otherwise. The second, is that I love you. I always have, in my own way, but I have. We will meet again soon, my son. I know it._

 

 

The letter ended there. 

Arya's eyelids fell closed and her chest constricted with pure grief. She sniffed. 

 

She was not sure what afflicted her most. The words of the old, dying man to his son, the fact that the son kept the letter close to his heart until his death, or perhaps that they were once again together. 

 

Maybe it was something else entirely. Maybe it was the memory, of a father once lost. _Not my father. Arya's father._

 

Grief was replaced by anger and she ripped the letter in half, wiping aggressively at the single tear that was resting by the corner of her eye. _No one does not weep like a like a stupid, lonely little girl._

 

She held the two halves of the letter to the flame. The corners caught quickly and Arya dropped them on the stone floor, watching with a blank expression as the flames ate away at the words. When they finally died, all that was left of the paper was a pile of curling ashes, shifting with every movement Arya made.

 

She stood and changed into her robe.

 

Her morning passed her as a blur of tastes, sights, smells and sounds. It was euphoric to see again. The waif, the kindly man, Umma, they all looked just as she remembered. 

 

That night, she stood for hours with a flagon of water while eleven servants of the Many-Faced god whispered and drank and whispered some more. When they took their leave, only the kindly man, the waif and a man with sores remained. Arya was summoned to sit, and the man with sores asked, "Who are you?"

 

Arya always replied "no one" to that question, and she was always called a liar. This was not the exception. 

 

When the man accused her of being Arya of House Stark, who bites her lip and tells a lie, Arya admitted to once being that girl, but not anymore. 

 

"Why are you here, liar?" the man had asked. "To serve. To learn. To change my face." Arya had replied. The man told her she must change her heart first and asked her to deny she would kill for her own purposes. When she bit her lip, he slapped her. Arya thanked him and denied it. He saw through her lie though. They always did. 

 

Arya blamed the letter. Reading it had been a mistake. It had turned her insides soggy. "Your heart is too soft for us." his words echoed her thoughts. 

 

"I have no heart. I only have a hole." 

 

This was true. The man with sores, the waif, the kindly man, all of them could call her a liar. A maester could sit with her for hours, and explain to her that her heart was indeed still beating in her chest, pumping blood and life into her skinny body, and that still wouldn't convince her she had one. What she had now was just meat. It was nothing more than a throbbing muscle, beating its sad song over and over again. "No, one. No, one. No, one. No, one."

 

The man with sores didn't think she could pay the price to stay in the House of Black and White. When Arya asked what the price was, he smiled. 

 

“The price is you. The price is all you have and all you ever hope to have. We took your eyes and gave them back. Next we will take your ears, and you will walk in silence. You will give us your legs and crawl. You will be no one’s daughter, no one’s wife, no one’s mother. Your name will be a lie, and the very face you wear will not be your own.”

 

Arya had thought about her short life in that moment. Winterfell. Her father and mother. Robb. Jon. Sansa. Bran. Rickon. Nymeria. Maester Luwin. Septa Mordane. She thought about Kings Landing. The King and Queen. Joffrey. Lady. Nymeria. Her father. Illyn Payne. Her jaw clenched. Yoren, Hot Pie, Lommy. Gendry. She blinked. Needle. Jon. Jaqen. Harrenhal. The Brotherhood. Lem, Anguy, Harwin, Tom, Thoros, Greenbeard, Jack. Hot Pie. Gendry. The Hound. The Twins. Her mother. Robb. Grey Wind. She blinked again. Needle. 

 

Needle was her family. Her father. Mother. Her brothers and sister. 

 

Arya Horseface. Arry. Weasel. Squab. Salty. Cat of the Canals. Blind Beth. 

 

Arya Stark. _Valar Morghulis_. 

 

 _I can pay the price._ She was certain of it. She asked the man with sores for a new face. "Faces must be earned." he informed her.

 

"Tell me how."

 

“Give a certain man a certain gift. Can you do that?” 

 

“What man?” 

 

“No one that you know.” 

 

“I don’t know a lot of people.” 

 

“He is one of them. A stranger. No one you love, no one you hate, no one you have ever known. Will you kill him?” 

 

 _Yes._ “Yes.” 

 

Outside of the House of Black and White, she was to become Cat of the Canals once more.  She no longer needed her walking stick, or the mummer's mole and pox scars. Over her eyes she wore a bind no more. She returned to Brusco's the next day. The sky was a deep grey, replete with clouds of the loveliest dark blue, the surface of the water around the city glimmered a similar colour. Everything was more vivid than before. It was alive. 

 

_I will earn my face. I will kill that man._

 

She walked the streets of Braavos with her cockles, mussels and clams once more, and got a first look at the man she would kill. She return to the House of Black and White that evening, to report her thoughts before returning to Brusco’s.

Day after day passed and Cat of the Canals watched the old man carefully. At first, she thought this would be easy. She had killed men before. Some brutally, some quickly. _A boy accidentally_.  

The Many-Faced god did not want brutality though. He did not want Arya to relish the man’s death. Just to kill him. That was all. No one feels nothing. No one won't enjoy talking a life. 

“I am no one.” she had whispered to herself as she watched the man from afar and found him disgusting and evil, and found herself anticipating with blood thirst, the day she could finally kill him. “No one feels nothing!”

Finally, after a week and a day, Arya knew how she would kill the man. With a little practice of her finger knife tricks, and a bit of help from the waif, she could do it. 

There was one place she had to stop by first, before she returned to The House of Black and White. For days now, she had wandered the streets of Braavos as Cat of the Canals and passed along many boys wondering if any of them were Edric. 

When she pushed the dead man's letter into the hole on her mattress all those nights ago, she told herself that when she had her sight again the first thing she would do was read that letter. 

The curiosity of Edric had been growing inside her over the past few days like a viney weed in a flower garden, and she seeing his face had been something she wanted to do with her sight since the night she tried giving the boy a face.

The night she had walked Edric the hollow boy home, she had still been blind Beth, but she remembered the way perfectly. She banged at the tall oak doors until a round bellied man opened the gate and smiled down at her with perfect teeth. It was Lord Ollie, a well-known nut merchant. She had seen him a few times before.

 

"I'm looking for Edric." Arya told him. 

 

The man considered her with guarded suspicion before he spoke. "Are you a friend of his?"

 

Arya bit her lip. _Lie._ she told herself. "He is my friend. I don't know if I am his." The man chuckled.

 

"I've seen you before. You're one of Brusco's"

 

"I work for him." 

 

"Cat of the Canals, they call you." Arya nodded. "Well I'm afraid Edric is out, little one. If you're in luck, you may find him down at the forge. Take the stone steps along the east wall down to my dock."

 

Arya bowed her head. "Thank you, m'lord."

 

There were too many steps to get to the dock, but Arya made it down hastily. The small harbour overlooked endless water and rested between two tall cliffs, making it very private. It was completely empty of both ships and men, save for an old man that was sitting at the end of one of the piers, smoking a long pipe. Lord Ollie's bright banners lined the boardwalk, fluttering wildly in the wind. The sky had darkened and the waves lapped at the rocks, sending a salty mist her way. 

 

The forge was to her left, built into one of the cliffs. From within, Arya could hear the steady ring of steel. It reminded her of Gendry. Two golden-yellow shattered doors were leaning against the stone wall outside of the forge; long, angry splinters poking out in every direction. As Arya walked closer, the ringing grew louder before it stopped completely. She would finally see what Edric looked like. 

 

She stepped over the threshold and into the forge, feeling herself grow a bit restless with the familiarity of it. The small room seemed to have been ransacked. Pieces of a few chairs and some broken tongs were piled in one corner. Edric was in the back of the room, his back to her. Arya's eyes fell on a polished oak rod resting on his work table. There was perforated steel etching fixed onto more than half of the rod. Arya's eyes narrowed. _A staff?_ Her brows furrowed. _A walking stick._

 

The unexpected warm feeling that overcame her in that moment was brief and too quickly stolen away from her, replaced by an icy stab of shock, nausea, anguish and rage when Edric turned from the fire and Arya saw his face.

 

**Note: don't forget to review!**


	7. Chapter 7

**AN: I know some of you really wanted the Arya chapter, but i decided to go with Gendry. Thanks to all my patient readers and reviewers. This one took me a while because, well, life.**

**Thank you John, as always, and please all of you, remember to review. I really appreciate all the feedback.**

**Chapter 7**

Gendry stepped out of the rain and into the house leaving behind him a trail of wet boot prints followed him all the way up the steps to his room. His clothes clung coldly to his frame and his long hair was stuck flat against his skull and neck, dripping with rain. He wiped violently at a strand on his forehead and began to fuss with the leather straps of his boots. The door was partly ajar so he could hear Lord Ollie's soft footsteps ascending the steps. The hinges on the heavy door creaked their protest as the man pushed it open with a soft knock.

"A girl was here to see you earlier." he stepped inside. "I sent her down to the forge, but I'm not sure she-"

"I saw her." Gendry cut him off as he peeled off the layers of clothes one by one and dropped them wetly by his feet.

He hated addressing Lord Ollie in such a crude tone, but there were days when he grew annoyed of the man and his cheerful, patient nature.

_I still do not trust him._

Even when all the man had ever bestowed upon Gendry was kindness. He took him in when Davos freed him of the red priestess and Dragonstone and his deadly fate. He took him in with no questions and expected nothing in return. But Gendry was so suspicious of everyone and everything that it was so easy to question even those kind actions.  _Were they kindness, or something else?_

A way to gain his trust, perhaps. A way to trick him into a false sense of security.

Perhaps he was just stupid to doubt that honourable men still existed, and that Lord Ollie was one of them. One thing that would never change though, even if Lord Ollie turned out to be as godly as he appeared.

_He is still a highborn._

"Cat, her name was."

Gendry's head snapped to Lord Ollie. "Her name is Beth."

"Beth?"

"A bald, skinny, blind girl with pox scars? The girl that came down to the forge. It was Beth."

Lord Ollie tilted his head to one side with a perplexed look teasing his features. "Her hair was shaved off, yes, but she was not blind, and she had no scars. She said she was your friend."

"I don't have friends. And I don't know any  _Cats_. Just Beth. A blind beggar girl named Beth."

"Maybe she lied about her name." Lord Ollie offered.

"Did she lie about being blind too?"

"People have more pity towards the blind, the crippled and the ill. I'm not calling your friend a liar, but perhaps it was a trick to-"

"She's  _not_  my friend. And people have little pity on anyone." Gendry turned his back to Lord Ollie and began untying the laces on his breeches.

"She works for Brusco. I've seen her before, pushing his cart of clams and mussels down the street."

"I'd like to undress in peace,  _please_." Gendry shot back at the man, hating how much like a snobbish highborn he sounded.

"Of course." Lord Ollie said apologetically. Gendry heard the sound of the man's skirt sweeping across the floor as he turned for the door and stepped out of the room. He exhaled sharply as soon at the door closed.

Not an hour ago, he had been down at the forge finishing the etchings he was working on to Beth's walking stick.

A walking stick for a liar. " _I don't need it anymore."_ Her words echoed in his head.

He had only seen a flash of her brown tunic as she darted out the door, but he sprinted after her and saw that it was Beth, running up the steps as if the death himself were after her. He tried to call after her. He tried to follow fruitlessly, for he tripped halfway up the steps and nearly fell.

If what Lord Ollie said was true, then Cat and blind Beth were the same person, and all this time, she had been pretending.  _For what?_

Gendry didn't care. He knew two things, that she was a liar and that the fact should not be upsetting him as much as it was.

He slipped into a simple pair of house breeches and a thin shirt and spent the rest of the day trying to distract himself from thoughts of the lying girl and her unfinished walking stick.  _I should have been working on fixing those doors instead._

It was pointless though. Tam was in a terribly quiet mood during their lessons, and during supper, Lord Ollie tried to make as little conversation as possible. The storm retuned that evening and with the rain falling hard and mercilessly outside, there was no way to escape the maddening silence of the large house.

His night was a restless one too, and Gendry could not figure out why he had trouble finding sleep. His thoughts found Kings Landing, and what vague, foggy memories he had of his mother. When he woke the next morning to the distant roar of the Titan's morning herald, the memory of his dream was fresh and vivid and real as the dim light that bled through the shuttered windows.

To his surprise, it was not Melisandre he had dreamt of, but Beth. She had the walking stick he made for her and the binds she usually wore over her eyes were gone as were the pox scars. What he was left to state at was a missing face. There was not a hole where the face should be, there was simply no face. No eyes. No lips and no nose. She spoke and the words were loud and clear, but no lips moved, and Gendry tried to find he source of the sound. She was telling him a story about a basket heavy of nuts that fell from her hands and broke. Nuts spilled all over the street floor for people to step on and ruin. All Gendry could pay notice to was the missing face. It terrified and oddly, saddened him a little.

Hs eyes focused on the outline of the shuttered window; he still felt the sadness and the terror he felt in his dream. He clenched his jaw and sighed. _Damn you Beth... you and your lies._

"Cat of the Canals." He brought up as casually as he could manage as he broke his fast with Lord Ollie later that morning. "You said you know who she works for?"

_If she came looking for me here and at the forge, she must need something. I just want to know what._

"Brusco." Lord Ollie replied in a tone as casual as Gendry's. "He's a fishmonger. You can find him below the Drowned Town."

"Brusco." Gendry echoed with a nod.

He made a quick stop at the forge after breakfast to finish the last of the etchings on the walking stick. It was hers after all. He had no use for it, so he would give it to her whether she needed it or not.

Finding Brusco was not difficult. The walk took him longer than he expected but when he finally made it to the street he'd been directed to by a man in a barge, he found a man with the crooked back ducking under a stone arch of a crumbling stone home. He was accompanied by a girl. When Gendry asked for Brusco, he considered Gendry suspiciously before taking a step forward.

"I'm Brusco."

"I'm looking for Cat."

"Cat never came back last night." the girl besides Brusco said, but when the man shot her a warning glare, she cast her eyes to the ground.

"She comes and goes." the man struggled to say. "She left for some long months a while back. I thought her dead, but then she came back. No hair and skinnier than this one here." The man shook the meager girl besides him by the shoulder. "I don't know when she will be back. She may be gone for a few days. She may really be dead this time. Last night's storm claimed several lives. Try the mortuary if you're that eager to locate her." he told Gendry dismissively and stepped inside his house.

Gendry started up the steps to the main street, walking stick at hand. He would go to Pynto and ask him if he'd seen her. He was almost sure Beth did a lot of her begging at his...

"She's not dead."

Gendry turned. It was Brusco's girl.

"Where is she then?" his words puffed out of his mouth in the cold air. He slowed his pace, allowing the girl catch up.

She came up beside him and they strolled down the street in silence until they were a decent distance away from her street, which branched out in a nearly parallel direction from the main road they were on. The girl looked nervous and would not stop glancing towards her house. "That is what you came to tell me. You know where she is?" Gendry snapped impatiently.

She licked her lips, clearly struggling to find a way to say whatever it is she was trying to say. Gendry turned his body to face her.

"I'm not too certain." she began, taking a deep breath. "Cat is very closed. Her eyes reveal little. All I ever see in them is ice. A dangerous cold."

"Danger? Is she blind?"

The girl frowned, clearly confused. "No." she turned to her house once more.

"Was she ever?" she shook her head. "Do you know where she is then?"

"There are nights, after my father falls asleep, when I slip out of the house to meet a boy. When Cat came to us, I saw her creep out at nights too; but not to meet a boy. We followed her once, this boy and I. The night was foggy so she did not know we followed her. She led us all the way up to the House of Black and White."

"The House of Black and White?" The name bothered Gendry for some reason.

"It's a temple. Cat always had a darkness about her. It really did not surprise me much. Some nights, my sister and I would hear her growling in her sleep. Then there was that list."

_List._

Every hair in the back of Gendry's neck stood at that word.

"Brea!"

They both turned to the steps that descended to the small alley behind Brusco's street. There stood a young girl, skinnier than Beth, if that was possible, glaring at them.

"I must go." the girl, Brea, told him as she turned for the steps. Gendry caught her wrist with his free hand and spun her to face him. When her wide, terror stricken eyes met his, he realized just how tightly his grasp was and he let her go.

"What list?" he demanded.

Brea shook her head with a nervous shrug. "Just a list. A list she whispers at night. A list of names." She turned away but Gendry grabbed her wrist once more, this time gently.

"Do you remember the names?" he pleaded. "Any of them? Please?" he dared to ask.

Deep inside his stomach, a feeling stirred and struggled to be freed. Gendry didn't let it get the best of him though.  _No feeling anything._

"I don't remember any of them." The girl pulled her hand from his and clutched it to her chest.

"Brea!" the younger girl called again.

"The House of Black and White." Brea whispered to him before running off.

Gendry sighed, his chest heavy with something unknown. He would not let it be known. He forbade himself from thinking it.

A stone bridge took him to a tavern where a tall girl with blonde hair and two missing teeth gave him directions to the temple.

The grey temple stood tall and menacing on a rocky hill. The climb up its many steps brought him before a pair of tall doors; one black and one white. He banged on them thrice and waited. His gaze wandered across the water to the temple of the Lord of Light, standing tall and red in its own hill. Gendry allowed himself a shudder.

Behind the black and white doors before him no sound could be heard. No sign of life. No music. Nothing. He tried again and waited, longer this time. On his third attempt, he called out in the common tongue of Braavos but still no one came.

"Damn!" Gendry pushed and pulled at the door but they did not give. What sort of temple kept its doors locked? He noticed to his right, the steep steps that led down to a covered dock where an old man was carefully untying his small boat.

Gendry darted down the steps, taking them two at a time. He would ask the man how to gain entry to the temple.

Suddenly, one foot fell heavy on one of the steps and it rocked loose, slipping out of its space. Gendry fell on his side and the walking stick clattered besides him before rolling off the side and dropping into the water with a heavy splash.

The man on the small dock must have noticed, for he called up at him in a concerned tone. Gendry didn't catch a single word he said though. The man's voice was just a blur of muffled sound behind him, and the splash created by the walking stick a fading echo in the air. The only thing that was real and clear was the cold pain biting at his side where the sharp steps had dug into his flesh.

He turned with a pained groan, careful not to fall over the edge like the walking stick had, when the space the loose stone step had slipped out of caught his eye.

With one scraped hand he pulled himself closer to get a better look and make sure the pain was not causing him to imagine what was not really there. But as he came closer and gaped into the hole on the floor, he saw it clear and real.

One hand kept him from falling over the edge and the other reached into the shallow hole to pull out the item that confirmed his earlier suspicions.

When Brea spoke of Beth, or rather Cat and her dangerous eyes and her list, Gendry had used every bit of will power he could conjure to keep his mind from even considering the possibility. He had, for a brief moment, allowed himself to consider it back when he had first met Beth and had decided that it would never happen again.

But as he curled his fingers around the small hilt of Needle and he felt the burn of tears in his eyes he allowed himself to consider; allowed the emotions to wriggle free.

"Are you hurt?" the man's voice called a few steps below him. "Are you alright?"

Gendry shook his head, his unblinking eyes set on Needle.

"No." he whispered. "I'm not. I'm not alright."

**Note:**

**Don't forget to review!**

 


	8. Chapter 8

 

**AN**

**Here is chapter 8. For a better feel of this chapter, I suggest you read Arya's last chapter in A Dance with Dragons, they pretty much go hand in hand. As always, thank you John :)**

**Chapter 8**

 

Edric turned, eyes fixed on the thin sheet of bright orange steel pinched tightly at the end of his tongs, and Arya's eyes grew wide with shock. Raw rage rippled up and down her limbs. It was Gendry. The stupid, bull headed, stubborn boy she met in King's Landing so long ago. He was taller; his dark hair, much longer now, tucked neatly behind his ears. His face clean and shaved; clad in highborn clothes... but it was him.

 

 _No!_ Arya thought with panic, willing herself to move her terror stiffened legs and leave the forge. _Not this! Not him. Not now! Why is he here? Why here? Why now?_

 

He set the sheet of hot steel down on the anvil with careful concentration and a steely ring resonated in the small stone room, startling Arya out of her shocked state. She spun away quickly.

 

 "Beth?" his voice made her shudder. 

 

She darted out the door before she did something stupid.

 

"Beth!" she heard him call again. It _was_ Gendry. Of course it was Gendry. How could he be anyone else? How could she have been so stupid? They took her eyes, not her ears or her brain. She should have known. Had she? Perhaps some previously ignored part of her had sensed it all along.  "Beth!"

 

"Quick as a snake! Quick as a snake, quick. Quick. Quick as a snake. Quick." she whispered to herself as she made her way hastily up the stone steps, running faster than she'd ever run before, perhaps, because she was frightened like she'd never been before. It was not perilous danger she was running from. It was not a Lannister soldier or the Hound. It was not one of the men from the Brotherhood, coming to fetch her back. 

What she was running away from, was Arya Stark. Gendry was Arya. He was King's Landing and he was Yoren. He was Hot Pie, Lommy and Weasel. He was Jaqen and the Brotherhood. Harwin, Tom, Anguy, Lem, Greenbeard, Beric. . . 

 

He was Arya. The skinny wolf girl she had been trying to kill this entire time.

 

It was Arya of House Stark who almost wept over the dead man's letter and it was Arya who had those wolf dreams. _I have to run away from her, run before she catches up and destroys everything I've spent my time trying to gain._

 

She came to the top of the stone steps but she didn't stop running, even when she trusted Gendry would not follow. People yelled after her as she darted past them, knocking belongings from their hands and slamming her bony shoulders against them in her haste. She pushed herself to run a little faster, to run a little further and the ache throbbing in her feet and the pressure pressing at her chest was what kept her from shattering into a million little pieces right there on the stone street. 

 

Without any warning, a sudden heavy shower of icy rain began to fall and finally, Arya stopped running. The busy streets emptied quickly as people scattered about like headless chickens, seeking shelter. 

 

Only Arya stood still, face turned up at the dark brown and grey sky. 

 

Her sides ached and her chest heaved violently with every desperate breath she sucked in as the fat drops of water that fell from the sky were quick to numb her skin. She allowed herself to weep then. Her warm, salty tears blended with the cold rain drops rolling down her face and only she knew she was crying. A small whimper escaped her throat and she closed her eyes. 

 

She was too close. Too close to let anything or anyone spoil it. 

 

"Girl!" she heard an old man's distant voice over the hissing sound of heavy rain drops whipping on the stone street, the stone houses and the clay tiles on the roofs. "Girl! Get out of the rain!" 

 

 _No._ She would not. Her wet clothes clung stiffly to her small frame and her body trembled with cold and desolation, but she would not move. Could not. 

 

"Girl!" the voice insisted, but she ignored it. 

 

A hand grabbed her wrist and pulled her, and for a moment she feared it would be Gendry. But it was just the old man, trying to usher her out of the rain. She kicked the stranger's leg before sprinting down the wet street, leaving his fallen body lying under the rain. 

 

 _Cat_ had to be at Brusco's with her empty cart and _No One_ had to report to The House of Black and White. There was no time for Arya to weep. There was no time for her to feel.

 

She found Brusco's cart where she'd left it in one of the alleys. A sopping wet cat was inside, lapping away at the left over fishy chunks in the gathering water, seeming to ignore the freezing rain that was plastering its yellow hair flat on his spine. It looked up at Arya innocently, licking at the white bits on its whiskers. She shooed it away and pushed the cart through the rain all the way down to Brusco's. The rain had died down by the time she arrived and she made her way slowly through the puddles of the grey city, trying not to think about Gendry until she  stood before the large black and white doors of the temple. The rain had stopped but the clouds above her were still dark and fat, promising more rain. 

 

The waif was there once again to receive her and help her out of her wet clothes. Arya padded through the dark corridors to her room  and settled with a shudder in a dark corner.  She sharpened her knife with a wet stone, thinking only of the soft, gentle movements and the glimmer of the single flame in the room reflecting off the blade. She was not sure how long she sat on the cold corner, sharpening the small knife until she could hear it ring every time she sliced at the air, but when she finally rose, her numb legs buzzed pleasantly. She snuffed her candle out and crossed to her thin mattress where she sat in darkness, emptying her head of any thought and feeling as the cold that had nestled deep into her bones earlier slowly seeped out. When she woke the next morning, she couldn't recall falling asleep. Her face was sticky and cool to the touch and she knew she had probably cried herself to sleep, but she could not remember, which was for the best. 

 

"I will grant the man the gift on the morrow." she informed the kindly man while they broke fast. He rose from his chair.

 

"He of Many Faces will be pleased." 

 

"What will I look like?"

 

With a nod of his head, the kindly man beckoned Arya to follow him, and she did. 

 

She was ready.

**AN**

 

**Don't forget to review.**

 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!!


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